The MM Network

[Jake]

"Consulting" is a broad brush.  Often it means working on real problems/work at a client site, on their projects (like Jake's company) - which can be really fun and rewarding - and you can be much more affected by the client's culture than yore own company but that can also put you out on an island and you have to make your own way any learning/growth/career advancement.  

Yeah, so Slalom is an interesting one. We're a 6k person company but DC only has ~130 employees right now. They are HUGE on keeping the vibe like a smaller company - everyone got a personalized Christmas card from our office's general manager, and the entire company got a holiday card from the CEO (not personalized, but a pic of his family and such). The president comes to every office's holiday party so he can at least get to know faces. We're pretty strict on 40 hours billable per week, and our culture comes with us to client sites for the most part (flexible hours/location are the big aspects). We're very much not just a staff-augmentation type of place, so everyone works on strategy and/or deliverables on every client, instead of just churning out widgets that the client already knows they need help with.

You don't find your own clients a la Booz, that's what your manager is for. And you can say no assuming there's a better fit coming. Everyone can help with proposals or sales but you don't have to. Lots of autonomy and ways to grow, so long as you don't just dick around all day. If you want to get a certification or go to a conference, there's budget for it.

I truly have nothing bad to say about being here so far, and it's been almost a year. We don't hire entry-level, though, at this point.